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Tweeting From the Front Line
blackbearnh writes "There's an interesting article up on O'Reilly Radar talking about how the US military is reacting to the increasing use of social media by soldiers in hostile territory. In an interview, Price Floyd, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, talks about the trade-offs between operational security and allowing soldiers and the public to interact, and how social media has changed the way the DoD communicates with the public. 'I think that we need to become much more comfortable with taking risk, much more comfortable with having multiple spokesmen out there, thousands of spokesmen in essence. But, for me, there's nothing more credible than the men and women who are out there on the front lines, fighting the wars that we're in, sending messages back to their family and friends.'"
I am assuming just leaking information as to where you're and the id you're tweeting from could assist someone to track you, and you only... As for troop movements and strengths, I assume that would have to do w/ the idiot actually tweeting in a combat zone. My 2 cents, the fact that these guys are even permitted to have devices such as a phone, or a laptop/net book baffles me still. I find it odd that we are so worried about their morale and their day-dreaming of home when a job that they signed up for needs to be given 100% focus. Another thing that bothers me about this is the chance of someone social engineering these guys, espionage in the form of profiles on Facebook or via myspace - Posing as women in their home town, or what have you...The chances of a man spilling their guts to a piece of trim is highly likely...especially when they start using their second head...
Your analysis of the situation in Afghanistan is naive, simplistic, and in fact completely wrong. Please stop talking out of your ass, and stick to subjects you actually know about.